In Shadows
by TaquetoCagy
Summary: Everybody's got something to hide, everybody has a past behind them. Everybody's got a story to tell, everybody's got the scars that they're hiding. When it comes to trying to heal the past that broke her, Mai doesn't realize how close the answer she has been seeking is to her, and just how much danger it is about to plunge Spargus City into.
1. Prologue

The pain was overwhelming.  
There was nothing she could see beyond that pain, there was only a blinding white light about her. Every fiber of her being was stretching, expanding, her nerves felt like they were exploding. In the light, there were flecks of color, and she felt her feet lift off the ground, felt angel wings beat at her back. Her nerves blasted with pain, her skin felt hot, her mind was sharp and the light around her burned.

_I have got to protect them_.

Why was she doing this. She shouldn't care. She'd reached the goal. She'd been lied too, tricked. She'd also won and she'd also lived and she'd also pieced things backed together. But if the target was acquired already, she wondered, why would she been sending every ounce of energy she had out into the air around her.

From her back, she felt angel wings beat.  
A sharp mind could not overtake the waves of pain. She was forgetting, she was disappearing, her being was breaking in the air around her. It came in waves across her, it washed through her body like the wind did the treetops.

_Gotta protect them. _

_Gotta..._

Why was she doing this...?  
She couldn't remember.  
She felt wings at her back.  
her head rolled with another wave of the pain.  
Why was she doing this?  
She didn't know anymore.

_I gotta..._

And with one shattering cry, the light around her broke. It fluttered in the air around her in pieces, between them she could see the ground below. She could see the faces of friends dotting it, their expressions turned upward at her.

In a moment brief and quiet, she looked. Her own skin glowed, but the glowing layer of skin seemed to be flecking off as she started to fade, and the glass-like light around her began to fall. The sound matched and she could hear it shattering faintly. Her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. As she moved her hands up to touch her ears, she noticed more of her light flecked off as she moved, falling like snowflakes around her. She pulled her hands from her ears, confused when they came away bloody. The red was sharp and pronounced against her skin.

When that one quiet moment was over, she broke. Her magic shattered, her power faded, and she fell from the sky in a crumpled heap on the ground below.

_I just needed to protect them._


	2. Chapter 1: Running

To my readers, new and old:

This is a story I have seriously been playing around with since Junior High, but I've never been able to figure out how to start it. I'm choosing what I think is best and going from there. To let you know how long this struggle has been about seven-eight years now. I'm still not entirely happy with the changes to the prologue but I have to start the story somehow.  
I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I have enjoyed developing it. There will be bonus artwork to accompany this story on my Deviant, such as chapter covers and illustrations of various characters

Also, thank you Migzie Cute for the review on the prologue. I appreciate it c:

* * *

_Chapter 1: Running_

It had been a beautiful morning, by all rights. The first spring day not to be shrouded in Fog and rain, the first warm day the city had seen, and it was like the townsfolk were coming to life underneath it. Even with their normal routines through the same warn paths on the city streets, things seemed a little brighter that day in Haven City.

I pulled my hood up, stepping out from the shadows of the building I was hunching behind. The Slums had never been a great place, but in my life there was no such thing as over caution. At thirteen, I already knew that. I had a father that couldn't leave the house, a baby brother to worry about, and a mother I had lost two years prior when we lost our home, our birthright. More recently, we had lost all of the Outer Barrier to Metal Heads. The new wall, pushed much closer to my current residence, loomed in reminder of what lie outside, what we now called Dead Town. Much of it had been damaged and a lot of it, rumor had it, was already starting to fall in decay. I hadn't been there that day in dead town, but I had been out in the slums. The rush of terrified people into the city - and then, the Baron just. Shut the doors. Left the rest to die.

I had heard of an Underground movement to overthrow the Baron, and secretly I was rooting for them, especially after I had seen what happened that day. Father said we didn't know if we could trust them and even so, the Underground had only started after that day. From what I could see in the Slums, though, they were gaining support fast. The city folk, especially in the slums, had little to hope for. A way out of the hell we were living certainly was something that they, and myself, would cling too. Father still insisted that we were not to approach them, and I knew I was too young and too much a liability to help them. At thirteen, my best course of action was simply support.

Hood up, hair stuffed back into it, I made my way through the throngs of people to get to one of the fruit stalls. I didn't need much today, just a few things. This was supposed to be a quick trip, a quick day out, back home in just a few minutes. That wasn't exactly how it went that day.  
Each Krimson guard that passed by set me on edge, and even if it had been a few years since we lost our home and my mother, and knew that I had grown and changed and wouldn't be immediately recognized, I didn't want to take the chance.

"Ay, little girl!" A happy voice said from behind the fruit stand rang out across the small space between us. One of the guards looked up and paused, probably to see if I was stealing anything until the vendor waved at him, then went on his way, speaking lowly into a communicator. "What can I get for you today? Its been a little while since I've seen you here!"

I nodded, it had been. Guard patrols had been up in the area recently and I didn't want to take the chance trying to get out more than I had too, so I had tried to make our food supply last a little longer than normal. Yet there is only so much you can do before it runs out, and I had a hungry baby brother to feed.

I chanced a glance up at the vendor. He believed me to be shy, but he was a hard person not to like. Cracked lines zigzagged across his face and his wizened hands were always busied with trying to organize the fruit in his stand. "Has business been good?" I asked quietly.  
He made a "Humm?" sound like he didn't quite hear me, leaning in before it registered . "Little girl, I am an old man, you must speak up for me!" He laughed, then paused before answering my question. "Business has been fine, little one, do not worry for old men like me. Now what can I get for you today?"

I smiled, and handed him a small wad of money. "Whatever I can get with this."  
He laughed again, counted, and then proceeded to fill my bag with various fruit and vegetables When it was heavy and sagged with the weight, he bid me good day and I darted back for the safety of my home.

We lived in the basement of another family's small home. They were just two, Kaia and her daughter Flycker, who we all called Ly for short. When we had nowhere else to turn they had graciously accepted us into their home. The living quarters were small but they had been gracious hosts, as our burden had been quite a thing to take on. For two years we had lived there quietly. Sometimes at night, very rarely, Father would venture outside to stretch his legs with Kaia and they would walk for a few hours. Father usually did not leave the house, because he knew he had to keep my brother and I safe, but there's only so much cooped up that people can deal with.

Kaia opened the door with little Ly peaking out behind her when I arrived back home. "Good morning, Mai!" Kaia greeted me, pulling me into a warm embrace. "I didn't even see you go out this morning. Ly was looking for you. I'm glad you made it home safely!"

"Yes." I grinned. "Ly, are you staying out of trouble?" I asked, turning to the girl. She was nine, tall for her age and thin. Electric blue hair stuck out in spikes around her face, cut short because she had managed to get a candy stuck in it a few weeks ago.

"I just wanted to play!" She pouted, folding her arms. "And you weren't home!"

"Mai had to pick up food for her family, dear." Kaia said, trying to sooth her daughter. "Let her go and see her family before she comes back up to play."

Ly was still pouting, but I thanked them and made my way down into the basement, fiddling with the false panel in the floor and sliding it back, then dropping into the room below.

The "Room" was more like a studio apartment. A small kitchen and bathroom sat adjacent to a larger room with a set of bunk-beds and a hammock, a little table with chairs, and a tiny fireplace. My brother was searching his toy box for something and my father was lying in the hammock, staring at me as a dropped down into the room. My brother jumped, then ran over and hugged my legs. I ruffled his hair and smiled at him before he toddled off to the toy box again before I approached my father.

"Daddy," I smiled, "You know that keeping the workout equipment under the hammock might prove dangerous if it ever falls?"

My father grunted, smiling at me. "What did you bring back, Mai?"

I opened the bag, full of fruit, and tossed him one. "Some of your favorites." I smiled, the approving look from my father filling me with childish glee. I knew the danger we lived in, but sometimes I still just wanted my father to be proud of me. He stroked my long hair and cupped my face in his hands.  
"You do good work, daughter. I'm going to make us supper, is there anything you would like?"

I shook my head, there wasn't anything in particular I wanted, so I just handed him the bag. As he stood, I took my leave and went over to the box to play with my brother before supper.

"Whatcha' doin' buddy?" I grinned, my brother's happy smile spreading across his face as he rolled a ball between his hands. I plucked it from him and he giggled, watching me step back to roll the ball across the floor at him. "I hope you were good for Daddy today."

From the kitchen I heard my father grunt. "He's a good boy, he's always good."

It was here that my day would turn to the one that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Kaia dropped into room, face red and eyes anxious. She approached my father and was gesturing wildly with her hands, not bothering to keep her voice down. "Ly went outside to play while she waited for Mai to come back up, and noticed a guard nearby on a radio, something about identifying the girl and had found their location… somebody recognized Mai this morning, we have to get out now. The guards will be on their way!"

My father threw the rest of the fruit he hadn't yet sliced back in the bag and tossed it over his shoulder, and I ran to grab another bag filled with clothes and basic items we would need. Surely there would be another safe house… Kaia would know were to go…

My father and I, hoods up as we darted into the city above us, dove for the cover of a crowd. Kaia and Ly were heading for a relative's house and we were running for our lives. Kaia had told us how to get to the Underground, it was the last place that we could go.

"By order of Baron Praxis, you are under arrest!" a Krimson Guard yelled from behind me, with a yelp my father pulled me and my brother into a run, his little legs struggling to keep up. I pulled him into my arms and sprinted, hood flying off. It was too late now, our only chance was to run.

Our only chance led us to a trap. Hellcats had the sky and foot troops had the ground, there was no escape. I pressed up against my father, still clutching my brother who's face was buried in my chest, and then my father was shot with the tazer gun. Shot after shot rang out at him, and my voice went hoarse from a scream as my father choked out "Run!"

I didn't make it far, surrounded, I tried to barrel my way through two of the guards, and was hit with the butt end of a rifle, my brother ripped from my arms as I collapsed. I tried to stand, head pounding and vision fuzzy, reaching for my brother who was scooped up by a man in a suit. The man dropped him when my brother, kicking and screaming, decided to bite the man's arm. "After the brat!" The man said, pointing as my brother ran into a crowd and disappeared. He was rubbing the bite on his arm when I got back up, yelling a rather loud curse at the man. He snarled, and as if that snarl was a command another guard hit me again. I fell back, but I don't recall hitting pavement. I don't recall hitting anything. My world was dark.

When the world came back to me, slowly and fuzzy, the first thing I could remember seeing was a sun painted on the ceiling. Next was the sound of running water, and the warm blow of air across my bare arms. I blinked hard a few times, trying to clear my head, trying to figure out were I was.  
"Don't sit up. The Monk's said you would be lucky if you woke up at all, after the blow you took to your head." A small voice said from my right, causing me to jump and jerk upward. The sharp pain that lanced across my scalp caused me to regret that move immediately and come crashing back down onto a pillow behind me. Spots dotted my vision, the edges fading back out. I became aware then that I was laid out on a stone floor, the pillow behind me and a small cushion underneath me. I didn't want to think of how much bashing my skull on the ground would have hurt, so I was grateful. "Told 'ya." the little voice spoke again.

I looked slowly to my right, to find my eyes meeting with rather large green ones. A girl, with waves of dark hair and no older than myself looked back at me, curiously. "Purple is a weird eye color." She stated, before she ran cold water across my forehead, squeezing a sponge she held above my face. "They said you're hurt real bad, but you don't need to worry. You woke up, so I think you'll be fine." She nodded to herself, turning to dip the sponge back into the little pond we were situated next to. Behind her I could see statues and what looked like a throne. Dark tinted windows lined the walls.

"Where are we?" I croaked, voice cracking and throat raw.

"Sounds like you need a drink." The girl said, ignoring my question and bringing a bowl of water up to my lips. I eyed her suspiciously as she helped me prop my head up, and then sipped at it. "We're in Spargus. I forget the Haven people don't know about us very well." She paused for a moment, as if thinking how to continue. "We're in the Wasteland, I grew up here. My name is Arella."

My head was swimming suddenly, my father, my brother.. We obviously had been banished, which was far better than the execution I had expected in this situation. But were was my family? I looked up at the girl again, stomach dropping with dread. "Were is my father? My brother?"

Arella looked confused for a moment. "Your dad is with our King right now, but there wasn't a brother with you. He must have been left in the city."  
From the sudden look of panic that flashed across Arella's face, I could tell, and so could she, that that was the very moment my heart broke.


	3. Chapter 2: Flying

"Wait. Wait. Wait wait wait wait wait!" I hissed, feet slipping again against the cold, damp rocks. "You know I can't do this as fast as you!"  
A dark-haired, green eyed girl laughed as she climbed along the rocks in the ruins of the Wasteland Temple. She was several feet in front if me, turning back to grin occasionally at me. She, though years of practice, could navigate the rocks without much of an issue. I, however, suppressed shakes every time I looked down. Huge chasms, black with untold depth, haunted the back of my mind with each jump. Which each quick step, each and every single time my feet slid even the slightest bit beneath me it got worse. "Arella!" I called, a whine creeping into the edge of my voice.

She laughed again, beckoning me over with her hands. "C'mon! We're almost there! You're doing really great today!" She yelled the last half of her sentence over a small fit of coughs coming from my small body. "Besides, don't you want to see what's on the other side of this thing?"

It had been a few months since I had come to Spargus City. My father, having earned his right in the Arena, had gained our acceptance into the city. Most days, he was busy working and I was busy training, trying to play catch-up to my peers. More often then not though, I fell sick. Ever since we'd gotten here, I'd been ill, almost bedridden. Today I had finally been feeling well enough to take up Arella's offer on going on an "adventure" with her. She'd been pressing the manner for several weeks.

"You should come if you're feeling well!" She had begged this morning, after once again asking how I was feeling. "I wanna show you something!" She'd been so excited over whatever it was. I sniffled, coughed again and met eyes with her.  
"C'mon!" She beckoned again.

I sighed, I jumped...

I tripped again as I landed but I had made it over the chasm, falling over myself and onto my hands and knees on the other side. My palms stung where I had skinned them, tiny bits of debris digging into my palms and knees. Beside me, Arella laughed. "You made it! That's good!" She tugged at my elbow, helping me up off the ground. I was coughing again. "You alright?"

"Yeah" I sighed as the coughing fit came to a close. "So... where are we going anyway?"

"Right over here!" Arella beamed, pointing. There was a small ledge, just big enough to walk across if you pressed yourself up against the wall, that lead to a room. It was well hidden, you couldn't see it from where we had originally come in at, trying to jump the gaps to get here.  
Arella and I had become almost inseparable during the few months I had been in Spargus. It was weird, I thought, to have a friend my age, and while I was still trying to adjust to this new life we had landed in. She had been the one thing to keep my mind focused, after the loss of my home, my brother...

That one still sent a pang through my chest.

We stepped on the other side of the platform, safe and in one piece. Arella darted into the room without a second though, and I followed after her, the light sounds of our footsteps echoing off the walls as we did so.

The room itself was dimly lit, precursor carvings lined the walls. There was a closed door on one side, though it did not open with Arella approached it. There was the base to an Eco vent situated in the center of the floor too "What's in there?" I asked curiously.

She shrugged. "I dunno. That's not what we're here for though!" She said, looking over her shoulder at me as she felt along the walls. "This is a secret room! Do you know how important that is?"

I didn't respond, instead I crossed my arms. "There's little chambers with Eco Vents and doors all over this Temple, Rel. There isn't anything in here we haven't seen already."

"That's where you're wrong!" Arella said as she continued bouncing along the wall, hopping over a few inches as she felt all along the wall. Suddenly, as she passed her fingers over a precursor symbol, the Eco Vent turned on. White Eco spilled out from it, wafting around the base in white vapors. Light shot up toward the ceiling, lighting the room much more intensely then any of the lights in this room had ever hoped to do. Arella squealed as I stepped back from the vent, surprised. "Look, look I turned it on!" She hopped in place.

"You're lucky you didn't find yourself a Dark Eco vent, then we'd be dead!" I yelped from near the archway we had come in at. "Lets go!"  
"No, no, Mai you don't get it!" Arella said, she met my gaze with a sudden seriousness.  
I stared at her for a brief moment."Rel, there's Light Eco vents that were way closer than this one."  
"You don't get it!" she groaned, dragging out the I for a couple seconds on the last word. "This room, Mai? Its not on any of the maps. Not a single one." She shrugged a small pack off her shoulders and let it thump to the ground. I inched closer as she pulled out a map, lying it on the dusty temple floor. "See? This is the chamber we came in at..." She pointed to part of the map with her index finger. "And this is where this room should be." She slid her hand over to the right a couple centimeters. She was right - it was blank. "Which means," She rotated herself back then, moving to look behind herself and point at the locked door "That nobody knows what's in there and that is what I want to know."

"Huh" I breathed, sniffling again. Maybe she'd been right, maybe this could be a fun adventure after all. "Any idea on how to open it?" I asked curiously. Surely if she was offering to bring me here she would have some idea on opening it.

"Ah... um, well actually no..." She rubbed the back of her neck, looking sheepish. "But! I'm sure that if I can turn a light Eco vent on then I should be able to open a door right? What's so hard about doors?" She turned her back to me then, approaching the strange door at the back of the chamber. I turned my attention to the shimmering light Eco vent in front of me.

I'd never seen Light Eco up close before. I had heard of it, knew the Monks had several vents in this temple... But I'd never actually seen the stuff. It was pretty, I thought, the way the little speckles of colors hung in the light. I reached a hand out to it. Light Eco was fairly harmless, from what I'd read. Could I feel it if I touched it? Would I just pass through it like one passes through light? My curiosity got the best of me and, sniffling, I reached out a hand to touch the strange substance.

I cried out. The sensation was like an electric shock, and it ran from my fingertips through my entire body. I snatched myself back away from the Eco Vent, pulling my hand up against my chest as Arella snapped around to see what the noise was about. "Mai...?"

I half-smiled at her. "Don't worry." I said "It zapped me, that's all."

Arella continued her stares. "You look like you're made of glow-y frosted glass."

"What?" I looked back down at my fingers. Sure enough, they glowed faintly back at me. I could feel my whole body tingling with the Eco. "Oh, my god. What... what's happening to me?"

"Something that's really really cool!" Arealla stepped forward, plunging her hand into the beam of the Eco vent. She pouted when nothing happened. "Well, that's not fair." She sighed. "Does it feel funny?"

"No... it kinda tingles, and I don't feel sick anymore either." I said, reaching my arms out in front of me to examine myself further. Even my sleeves had turned colors, everything was white and glowing faintly. "Wait, Arella!"  
I gasped suddenly, realizing that this actually was pretty bad. "I can't go back like this!"

Arella pouted again. "Well... lets go talk to the Monks, I guess. Maybe they can fix it?"

I nodded. They might get mad at us for just messing with a light Eco vent but it would be nothing to what my father might do if I came back this way. I took a deep breath as we took our leave, Arella shutting off the Eco Vent however she had managed to get it turned on and we went to navigate again over the rocks.

She could bound her way over the rocks with grace, and I, even in this new glowing state was still struggling. Just as before, Arella giggled up ahead and assured me I was doing fine. My feet slipped as I took another jump, and when I landed I fell backward off the rock into the void below.

"Arella!" I shrieked, dropping down into darkness. I heard my name eco off the rocks above. I was panicking, hyperventilating as I was sure I was about to meet sudden death on the rocks below. I needed a way out, I needed to fly.

With a sharp pang, it happened then. Wings issued from my back. Large, looking like they were made of crystals. I pumped them hard, and forced my way back up. I wasn't sure what I was doing, my body was still curled up in fear as I made my way back up to the surface. I hovered above the rocks for a moment before I dropped back down. "I can fly!" I shrieked, half elated and still half panicked. "I CAN FLY!"

Arella snatched me up in a hug, shaking, laughing, as the light eco left me, making a small puff of light particles that disappeared in a second afterward. When she let me go, we made our way out of the room, off to see the monks.


End file.
